Helping hand

The first, of course, was Diego Maradona’s “Hand of God” opener for Argentina against England in the 1986 World Cup.

The second, captured by multiaward winning Marske United programme editor Moss Holtby, was United’s 92nd minute equaliser, scored by Leon Carling against Penrith in an Ebac Northern League relegation battle last week.

“It was a style more suited to the Harlem Globetrotters,” admits Moss.

“Barring the three men that mattered, everyone in the ground could see the blatant arm in the air. People were just amazed.”

Maradona’s blatant cheating came in the 51st minute – “a little bit of the head of Maradona, a little bit of the hand of God,” he insisted, and it was another 20 years before he confessed that the hand ball was wholly deliberate.

His second, only four minutes later, was subsequently voted World Cup goal of the century and Maradona himself named Fifa’s player of the century, jointly with Pele.

Though they’re now safe, the loss of two late points could at the time have pushed Penrith into a relegation position.

Hand of God notwithstanding, club secretary Ian White remains a good Methodist and biblically turned the other cheek. “You’ll be pleased to know that I kept my good humour with the match officials afterwards,” he reports.

There could still, however, be a black label for Mr Carling.

LIKE Boca Juniors, for whom Maradona played with some distinction, Coundon and Leeholme Youth are a senior side.

Their semi-final win in the Clem Smith Bowl at the weekend means they’ve entered five cups and reached the final of every one.

They also need only six points from four games to win the Durham Alliance. For a place its size, Coundon may in recent years have won more cups than anywhere else in the land.

SUNDERLAND RCA football club’s ground is next to the graveyard in Ryhope. The programme carries a very good column called View From the Cemetery, in which the deceased posthumously raises eyebrows about the 4.25 at Clonmel.

It was called the Bishop Auckland Theatre Hooligans’ Novices Chase, £14,500 added and £10,005 to the winner.

The old bloke’s baffled. Was theatre hooliganism par for the course?

Had someone in a Co Durham town so greatly enjoyed a night of fisticuffs and mayhem that they named a race after it? Was it a stag night from Ireland that decided Malaga was old hat and picked on Bishop Auckland instead?

Bishop Auckland Theatre Hooligans, it may be prudent to explain, is a youth theatre group based at the King James I Community College in the town. Thereabouts they’re simply known as BATH.

Why it should lend its name to the 4.25 at Clonmel, and how Viaduct Joey’s winning owner picked up ten grand, we have been wholly unable to discover.

As they may say at BATH, it’ll probably all come out in the wash.

THE occasion of his ruby wedding anniversary notwithstanding, former Fifa referee George Courtney duly spoke at a fundraiser for Tudhoe Cricket Club, in Spennymoor, on Friday.

He once scored a century for the seconds, it transpired. “He’d have been a very canny cricketer if football hadn’t got hold of him first,” said former seconds captain Cec Lowes.

George is very good, knows his audience – mostly on first name terms – and they him. There’d been a long lost love in Consett, he recalled. “They were posh, they owned an electric blanket,” said George.

Next day he was match delegate at Scunthorpe, at night taking his wife for a slightly belated meal in downtown Bishop Auckland. On Sunday morning he was refereeing a youth game on Spennymoor allotments. The old butcher’s dog will be 72 in June.

STILL in Spennymoor, we hear of an improbable addition to the burgeoning crowd for Saturday’s FA Vase final at Wembley – well known Arsenal fan, Mad Frankie Fraser.

Frankie, a total of 42 years at Her Majesty’s Pleasure, has been invited by Paul Hodgson, secretary of Spennymoor Boxing Academy, when he twice attended the annual presentation.

“He’s definitely coming. I think he took to us a bit through spending so much time nearby in Durham,” says Hodgy.

Still conducting gangland bus tours, Frankie Fraser will be 90 in December.

ON Saturday up to Alnwick Town, football’s other St James’s Park and much the happier, presenting a salver to mark the club’s 1,000th Northern League appearance.

The Duke of Northumberland hoped to be there, too, but had to go to a wedding. The referee was Mark Ryan from Sunderland, by trade and by hobby a pest controller. The pests, by and large, behaved.

ALSO at Saturday’s match was John Grossart, a Scottish ground-hopper exiled to Carlisle but with a particular affection for Alnwick – “lovely people,” he says.

He travels everywhere by public transport, tells the story of a visit this bleak midwinter to watch a night match at Pickering. Finding himself in Whitby at 2.50pm, he asked the time of the next bus to his destination. They told him it was six o’clock, suggested he head for the railway station.

“When’s the next train to Pickering?” he asked.

“Easter,” they replied.

He caught the bus instead.

SINCE much of today’s column has been about referees, it should also be recorded that after 124 years of being men only, the Northern League first division will have three women refs next season.

Helen Conley from Bishop Auckland, Rebecca Welch, from Washington, and Lucy May, from Northumberland, have all been promoted. Ms May could have a particularly well qualified mentor.

Her partner is Michael Oliver, the youngest referee in Premier League history.

BORN and educated in Darlington, playing his football for West Brom and Scotland, Jamie Morrison admits in a questionnaire that he “wasn’t the greatest” at school. “A lot of the lads will tell you I’m thick,” he adds.

The confessions get worse. He and his mates were suspended for three days after a chance meeting with a teacher in a shop – “she was dressed up going for a night out”.

“Like a lot of 16-year-olds, we got a little bit cocky and had a bit of banter with her. Clearly she didn’t see it as banter at all.”

...and finally, last week’s column invited Chris Gayle’s November 2012 claim to fame ahead of that 30-ball T20 century. Against Bangladesh in Dakha, the West Indian became the only man to hit a six off the first ball of a test match.

Paul Hewitson in Darlington today invites readers to name – preferably through bar room debate and not with the aid of a search engine – the top ten UK winning jockeys over either flat or jumps.

Horses for courses, the column returns next week.